Tom Hardy is definitely returning to 'Mad Max,' but what about James Bond?

Tom Hardy has made a career out of humanizing larger-than-life characters — from infamous real-world criminals like Charles Bronson and the Kray twins to pop culture icons such as Max Rockatansky, Heathcliff and Bane.

In unsteadier hands, such titans could easily slip into caricature, but Hardy has somehow always managed to excavate the humanity in his villains and the fallibility in his heroes, creating characters whose moves and motives are as unpredictable as Hardy's taste in roles has been.

When asked whether he'd want the Bond role in a recent interview, Hardy politely demurred, "there’s a saying amongst us in the fraternity of acting, and in the fellowship of my peer group, that if you talk about it you’re automatically out of the race. So I can’t possibly comment on that one! If I mention it, it’s gone."

Still, the Revenant star has no shortage of other projects lined up; his name is attached to biopics centered around Elton John, explorer Ernest Shackleton and Al Capone — not to mention another installment of George Miller's ongoing Mad Max franchise, following the critical and commercial success of Fury Road.

"I've signed to do three of them, so it's a question of when," Hardy told reporters at the Television Critics Association winter press tour, where he was promoting his new FX series Taboo. "I'm not sure if it's called The Wasteland or not because you never know, these titles change all the time, but there is definitely a Mad Max project."

And that's not even counting the projects that Hardy is developing through his production company, Hardy Son and Baker, which he runs with his father Edward "Chips" Hardy and Dean Baker. These include an adaptation of the Vertigo comic series 100 Bullets, future seasons of Taboo, and, according to Hardy, more TV shows: "We have another couple of TV series ... we have a deal with NBC where we have to come up with a couple of series a year," he told Mashable at TCA.

"We have put a few things on the slate; there is TV, movies, independent film, there is theatre," he said. "It's a question of which endeavor is moving at a certain speed ... These things are slow burn. Taboo is nine years old. In the last two years it ramped up into shooting it and post-production. The last two years have been very busy, but the nine years before — the conversation started then. A lot of these productions take time. [They] average about five years before something sees the light of day."

Hardy describes Taboo, a gothic period drama set in 1814, as a "labor of love" for all involved. The series initially sprang from a conversation between Hardy and his father after the thesp played Bill Sikes in a BBC adaptation of Oliver Twist.

"I thought, wouldn’t it be great to take somebody like Bill Sikes, who is kind of a villain, but then put him inside a gentleman’s body, and mix the two together and create a sort of hero in a classic period drama that could transcend all classes, between the splendorous, opulent world of the high end, and also the underworld of London?" Hardy revealed during Taboo's TCA panel.

In addition to Bill Sikes, Hardy has said that he drew inspiration from the likes of Marlow in Heart of Darkness, Heathcliff, Doctor Faustus, Sherlock Holmes, Hannibal Lecter, and Jack the Ripper in conceiving his troubled Taboo character, James Keziah Delaney.

Although Hardy said his father initially expressed hesitation about amalgamating so many distinctive characters, a year later, he presented Hardy with a treatment for the series that would become Taboo.

The duo then took the project to Steven Knight, whom Hardy had previously worked with on the claustrophobic indie film Locke, and another gritty period drama, Peaky Blinders, and Taboo was born.

"The story was developed over a succession of layers, as it were, from a conceptual idea to a collaborative writers' room which was headed by Steve Knight and completely executed under his penmanship throughout the eight episodes as it became more erudite and became a shooting script," Hardy told Mashable. "Which then started to diversify on the floor when we were shooting it, because things would pop up ... So it became an ever-changing and evolving piece, right up to the final day of shooting, and even in the edit, again, it's another process."

For Hardy, one of the most satisfying aspects of the series was the "collaborative" nature of the show, which offered a different experience from most big budget productions.

"I've never worked on TV or film in a way that's similar to the theatre rehearsal room between actors and writers and the director, whereby — this was also with the crew — there was a communal feeling of 'anybody who has a better idea right now, speak up and we will facilitate that immediately,' because we want everybody's best," Hardy told Mashable. "No matter what the idea is, we can't dismiss it because the project was open and could hold that. We take the work seriously, but not ourselves seriously. We had a lot of fun doing it."

Pictured: Tom Hardy as James Keziah Delaney in 'Taboo.'

Image: FX

Taboo has a grimy, lived-in atmosphere that grounds the series, despite some of the show's more mystical, potentially supernatural elements. In addition to the creativity of directors Kristoffer Nyholm and Anders Engstrom, along with director of photography Mark Patten, Hardy says every department played a role in making the show come alive.

"From the make-up, costume, the set design, locations, everything was about ‘what can we pour into this,’ in the truest sense of the word, as opposed to explosions and CGI," Hardy explained. "Everybody had a say, we had a clock, we had money and a certain amount, and we had to achieve a goal. Anybody who could help facilitate that in the best way possible, we incorporated those ideas ... So that was unique. I have not been on a show like that — it made it very special."

While some actors lend their names to projects as executive producers without getting involved in the daily grind of production, Hardy seems passionate about exploring all aspects of the industry.

"It is not enough to just say, 'Oh, I am executive producing, my name is on it.' I want to actually get it on the floor and be part of that," he said. "I love it all. I have tremendous respect for a lot of people behind the camera, and I have relationships with them, so it would be wrong not to participate."

For Hardy, the joy of the craft appears to be the engine that drives him.

"I love TV, I love film, I love theatre, I love reading stories to kids on the CBeebies channel. I like storytelling," he told Mashable. "It's about the fun. Am I going to have fun? Is it something I want to do? Am I going to enjoy the team? Am I going to enjoy the experience? Or is there a challenge? Who is interesting? Who am I going to work with? I don't really mind where it is. I am extremely lucky to be able to make a living at what I do, but I also love what I do. I will go wherever the most interesting places to go [are], and I think with Taboo, I was very keen to work with my father, but I was also very keen to put back in to my roots, really, and say, 'look, this is something that we do in our country, I would like to participate in that.'"

As for whether that voracious interest will eventually lead him to the director's chair himself, Hardy chuckled, "We'll see, I'm not there yet. There are too many good directors out there ... it's a high bar."

Judging by his career trajectory thus far, it's a bar he should have no trouble clearing.

Mashable
is a global, multi-platform media and entertainment company. Powered by its own proprietary technology, Mashable is the go-to source for tech, digital culture and entertainment content for its dedicated and influential audience around the globe.